The water swirled before him, and a girl arose. A girl, perhaps ten or twelve years old. Her dark skin, black hair, and tiny angular face bore no resemblance to his Anishu love, but she seemed to know him, to beckon for him. To whisper a name that was his own despite the fact that he did not recognize its sound. He shuddered, his feet shuffling toward her with a will of their own. Rather, the River moved them, pulling him toward the child. A panic seized Perkar, dream-panic that overwhelmed everything else, drove like a dagger between sleeping and waking, tore a rent in the wall of dream that he fell through, to lie blinking and groaning on his blanket.

"Never have I had such a dream," Perkar told Eruka. The two of them were trudging along an animal track at the top of a ridge, hoping to run across game—the expedition's supply of meat was running low, and the Kapaka had ordered a halt for hunting.

"The city you describe—I scarcely believe that such a place exists."

Perkar shrugged. "It was a dream."

"But sometimes dreams have great potency, particularly if you dream of something you have never seen. I once dreamed of my father, niece, granduncle, and a bull, all naked save for hats, dancing in a circle and singing. I think a dream of that sort means little—tiny sprites turning things already in your head inside-out. But the Great Songs speak of dreams in which heroes see unknown lands, unforged swords—those things they don't already know. Dreams like that must come from more powerful gods."

"Your niece—how did she look, naked?"

Eruka shouldered him good-naturedly. "My niece is more a woman than the waif in your dream city of stone towers and white streets. Much more. I can scarce reach my arms around her waist."

Perkar grinned, but the dream image came back to him: a black-haired slip of a girl with huge eyes and skin as dusky as a Mang's. Certainly he had never seen her.

"Sst." Eruka motioned silence. "There is a deer!"

Perkar bobbed his head a bit, trying to see what Eruka saw. Indeed, there it was, a buck with spreading antlers.

Eruka motioned to their left and began padding that way, drawing an arrow from the ornate quiver at his side. Perkar nodded and drew his own shaft, fitted it to the sinew cord on his own bow.

The buck snapped up its head and began to run. Gasping, Perkar pulled back on the string, let the arrow fly. The shaft cut air and a few leaves—the buck was no longer to be seen.

A few moments later Eruka rejoined him, scowling. "I thought you had hunted before."

"I have," Perkar answered defensively. "But on horseback, with hounds running the beasts. With a spear, not a bow. And I've hunted mostly boar, not deer."

"Me, too," Eruka said, grinning sheepishly. "I thought it would be no harder on foot."

Perkar snorted. "We were lucky to even see that animal, I think. I doubt we will see another."

"If only I was a great heroic singer, like Iru Antu." Eruka sighed. "The kind of singer who can change the songs of things, make spirits obey his will. I could simply summon us a deer, have it stand still while we slew it."

"The other night you boasted of just such an ability," Perkar reminded him.

Eruka grinned back at that. "Woti talks for me, sometimes. I can do a few songs like that—a very few. But you have to know the ins and outs of the original song before you can change it, and I know none about deer."

"Rabbits? Elk?"

"None of those," Eruka allowed.

Perkar nodded glumly. "We go back empty-handed, then."

"So we do," Eruka agreed.

"Well shot," Eruka told Atti.

Atti shrugged. "Ngangata killed him; I was just there to drag him back."

"Just the same," Perkar said, "I'm glad somebody brought fresh meat back. Another day of bread…"

"How much more of this, anyway?" Apad asked, gesturing at the forest around them. "It's been six days since we left the last damakuta behind."

"And tomorrow it shall be seven," Atti replied. "And the day after, eight. This is no jaunt up to your summer pasture, Apad."

"I know that," Apad said testily. "I just want to know how much longer."

Atti glanced at Ngangata. The half Alwa turned steady eyes on Apad. "Another eight or nine days, depending upon the weather," he said.

"How long before we enter the territory of your kin?" Apad inquired, unable to resist a faint sneer on the word "kin."

"The Alwat don't count me as kin any more than you do," Ngangata retorted. "And we've been in their territory for five days now."

"Five days? Where are they?"

Ngangata shrugged. "If any are around here, they are avoiding us. The only signs I've seen have been many days old."

"Signs? What signs?"

"Footprints. Tools, a few shelters."

Apad frowned. "I've seen none of that."

Ngangata shrugged noncommittally, emphasizing his relative lack of neck. "I suppose you haven't."

"What does that mean?" snapped Apad.

"I just repeated what you said," Ngangata rejoined softly.

Apad scowled. He stalked over to the bloody deer carcass, examined it with his fists resting on his hips. "You probably talk to them while we are asleep, don't you? Did they kill this deer for you?"

Ngangata stopped skinning, looked down at his own feet for a moment. Then he walked over to his bundle of things, picked up his bowstave, and strung it.

"What will you do with that?" Apad asked. "That isn't a man's weapon." Perkar saw that his friend was trying to affect an easy, haughty attitude; but he also saw that his muscles were tight, corded—Apad was tense, worried, ready to reach for his sword or dash aside. He was afraid of the halfling. And why not? A warrior would not shoot another over an insult—challenge him to combat perhaps, but not simply murder him. But who could tell what this kinless creature might do?

"It isn't a warrior's weapon," Ngangata agreed. "I am not a warrior." With that, he snapped a black-feathered shaft onto his string; for him, the motion seemed as easy as stretching at daybreak. The bow bent and sang; the little man's body somehow bent, too, bow and arm and back together. Perkar wasn't sure exactly how it was so graceful—and certainly he could not do it himself.

Down came the arrow, a bird impaled upon it.

"If you are worried about where the deer came from," Ngangata told Apad, "there is your meat."

The Kapaka, sitting at some distance from the rest of the group, chose that moment to come and join them. He clapped Apad on the shoulder.

"Best we have a fire to roast this on, eh, Apad?" he said.

Apad stood a bit longer—to give the impression of reluctance, Perkar thought—and then left to gather wood. After a moment, Perkar followed to join him.

We all fear Ngangata, he mused. We don't like him because we are afraid of him, afraid of what he might do. He remembered a favorite saying of his father's:

The next day they left the rich lowlands behind, began ascending the hills. Ngangata led them through winding valleys, thick with laurel and hickory and, finally, higher up, white birch. The ways became steeper and steeper, but Perkar remained amazed that they made any progress at all, without trails and in such rugged country. The land pleased him, despite its wildness; he imagined how it would look in pasture, how well suited the ridge there on the right would be for a damakuta and its outbuildings. Oh, it would be far and far from his father's lands, but it would be his. It would be far from her, too, and that thought hung about him, a clinging mist of melancholy. He considered, once again, that perhaps it would be better, after all, to marry Bakume's daughter, if only so he could remain close to the goddess.

But no, he knew better than that. He could not have her. The best he could do was to give her a gift, a gift that she would remember in a thousand years, when he himself was the ash of a memory. His heart tightened on the thought of that gift, squeezing out other dreams, damakutat and pasture. Around him, the land lost its promise and luster, became merely trees and bushes.

His reverie was interrupted when the party halted. Knowing that he had missed something, Perkar glanced around him, searching for the cause of their delay. Nightfall was still some time away, and he saw no stream where they could water the horses.

"Who built this?" the Kapaka wondered, and it was then that the forest around Perkar came back into focus, reasserting its presence in his mind, if not his heart.

Near them stood the ruins of a damakuta. Perkar had ridden straight past the remaining timbers of its stockade, mistaking them for dead trees. The building itself had not been lived in for many years; the cedar shingles were nearly all gone, leaving the skeleton of the roof to bleach and wither in the sun and rain. The walls were collapsed, too, here and there, but whoever had built it had laid a firm foundation, for the frame still stood. The beams were entire trees, stripped of bark.

Inside, ferns and moss ran riot. The six dismounted and walked carefully through the ruin, searching for any sign of its inhabitants. Eruka began a little song to frighten off ghosts.

"What happened to them, do you think?" Apad asked of no one in particular, running his palm up the shaft of a support pillar.

"This wasn't their place, that's what happened," Ngangata answered. "They took from the Forest Lord without asking."

"How do you know that?" Eruka asked, interrupting his own song.

Ngangata shot the young man a clearly puzzled look. "Have you seen other damakutat? The Forest Lord has never granted Human Beings land this far into the forest. This is Alwat territory. The land is for them."

"To what end?" Apad growled. "I see no pasture, no fields, no fine houses. To what end do the Alwat use this land?"

Ngangata shook his head as if at a child. "That is no concern of ours. The Forest Lord does what he will with his land, gives it to whom he wishes."

Perkar frowned. "My great-grandfather bargained with a local god—not the Forest Lord. Perhaps these people did the same."

"Then where are they?" Atti asked, sweeping his hands around.

"They might have built elsewhere," Perkar suggested.

Atti shrugged. "Might. Might and a stone is just a stone."

"This once I agree with the half man," Eruka muttered. "This is no concern of ours. Let us be gone before the ghosts of these people waken."

The Kapaka was more stubborn than that, but not much. "We'll leave a cup of woti for the ghosts of men, burn incense for the women. This is the least we can do, for whoever they were."

Perkar helped the others make the preparations hurriedly, kindling a small fire to provide coals for the incense and to warm the woti so that it could be smelled by the ghosts. Eruka sang the "Thanking Ghost Song," but even his fine voice could not hide his worry—indeed, he fairly flew through the last seven stanzas. Much too quickly really. It was well past midday when they mounted back up. Atti was the last on his horse; he dug through the packs on his second animal and brought forth a chain-mail shirt.

"Why that?" Apad asked. "Afraid of the ghosts?"

"Not the ghosts," Atti said. "Just a feeling."

A little chill ran up Perkar's spine, and after a moment's hesitation, he shifted his weight into his left stirrup, preparing to dismount and don his own armor. A frown from Apad stopped him, though. It was as if the other man had simply said, "Show the hill man that you aren't afraid." And so he stayed in his saddle. But he made sure that his sword was within easy gripping reach; he tied it across his saddle horn, where it had been for the first week of their journey, when Perkar still entertained some notion that he might need it. Now he entertained that notion again.

The damakuta was still in sight, but just barely so, when Eruka whispered, "See? See there?" Perkar stood in the stirrups and looked back the way they had come. A little curl of smoke from the incense was still visible; it would go out soon. And there, near it, crouched four figures, or shadows of figures. Eruka, between Perkar and the apparitions, had his eyes shut now, was reciting something low and quick. Perkar nudged Mang into a trot.

"Hsst," the Kapaka said. "No. It would be rude to flee from them. Ride slowly, don't look back. They will not follow."

Nevertheless, as the shadows grew longer and deeper, Perkar felt uncomfortable about his back. His spine seemed to believe that it was turned toward something dangerous, something darker than the shadows and more sinister than ghosts. Perhaps the apparitions were not ghosts at all but tiskawal, perpetually starving spirits who hungered after Human spirit and blood. He didn't voice his fears, for they seemed silly. He had seen more than a few ghosts in his life, and those back at the abandoned damakuta had looked and behaved normally enough.

Mang and the other horses shared his disquiet, though, nickering and stamping, rolling their heads about. Ngangata and Atti seemed even more watchful than usual, their necks craning, gazing up into the trees and down to the steadily thickening underbrush.

"Someone cleared this once," the Kapaka observed of the dense growth. "See how there are no large trees, how closely the saplings grow? This was once pasture."

Ngangata agreed. "It will likely get thicker. We should circle around this; they can't have cleared much."

"Too much. Far, far too much." Apad's voice sounded sharp and accusing. "They cleared and they burned. They killed my children and they never asked me if they could."

Perkar actually chuckled. Apad had pitched his voice so solemnly, so seriously, and yet the sentiments were not his at all. He was clearly mocking Ngangata's earlier remarks, speaking singsong, the way gods were supposed to, sometimes…

Perkar turned then and glimpsed the awful thing that spoke: a dark, hideous head perched atop a body something like a cat's, but much like a man's as well.

The real Apad gaped for an instant, then cursed and shrieked simultaneously. His horse reared and screamed horribly, as if imitating his master. The panicking roan crashed into Mang, smashing into Perkar's right leg. Pain lanced up through his thigh, and then Mang reared, dumping him beneath the roan's furiously pawing hooves. The ground came as a shock, like the slap in the face the goddess had given him before he left. His lungs sucked tight, and he could not draw air for a long, painful moment. He had barely the presence of mind to fold his arms around his head, seeking some protection against the iron-shod hooves.

Fortunately, for him, Apad brought himself and his beast into some semblance of control, and so Mang calmed in turn, despite the thing facing them, the thing that had spoken in Apad's voice. Gasping and moaning, Perkar struggled to a crouch.

His companions had all dismounted; their horses would not stand still enough to sit upon. Eruka and Apad brandished swords and Atti gripped his long-handled axe. The Kapaka had no weapon drawn, but his hand rested firmly on the hilt of his sword. Ngangata was just looping his bowstring into place.

"Steel," Apad's voice came from a rippling slit in a head like a black, rotten pumpkin. "You've come back. I just blink—take the merest nap—and there you are again, with your steel." The head seemed to grin; its eyes were knobs of deeper black, with no whites, pupils, or lids. Its teeth, Perkar thought, were much like a cat's and so indeed was its body; the monster squatted on a lion's rear legs, for certain. But the forearms, oddly thin for such a massive creature, looked very Human. Or Alwat. It was still, moving nothing but its mouth.

Eruka stammered at the god. "A-Aniru," he began. "We have not met you before. We don't know your song, or how to honor you. If you could te… teach us…" He trailed off as the thing cocked its head speculatively at him.

Perkar felt his shock-induced calm begin to vanish; he was close to shaking, closer still to running as fast as he could. He knew of gods—they were all around, in each tree and stone—but all of the ones he had ever known were tame, and the only one he had ever seen, in manifest form, was her. This was a Wild God, and Perkar knew nothing of them. Or rather, he knew only one thing: that he feared them.

"If you dislike our steel, come no closer," Apad warned, but his words rang flat and unbelievable.

"Aniru," the Kapaka said. "We had no wish to trespass nor to do damage in your domain. We only pass along here, going to the home of the Forest Lord in the mountain. We have business with him."

The head quivered. It spoke, this time in Ngangata's voice. "I know of no Forest Lord. I know only of your kind, what you bring with you, steel. Now I think I will eat you, shit your steel out with your bones. Your ghosts may go on to see this 'Forest Lord.' "

The Kapaka reluctantly drew his sword, as well. "We mean no harm here."

"Like you meant no harm when you cut down my trees and built your wooden cave? Yes, I know what you mean by that."

"That wasn't us," Eruka complained. "Ngangata, speak to it!"

The halfling had an arrow nocked. "It is a mad god," he said. "Wild and mad. What would you have me say?"

"Tell it we are leaving here."

Strange words trickled from Ngangata's lips, weird short syllables, strangely songlike.

"I thought you had a different scent," the god remarked, when Ngangata was done. "Your kind respect me. You may go, if you wish."

The god leapt at them, springing from its haunches without warning. Perkar scrambled wildly to his feet, seeking Mang and his sword.

The Wild God reached Atti first, and one of Ngangata's arrows already stood in an opaque eye. Atti met the monster with a downstroke; his axe thudded into the bunching sinews between neck and shoulder. Then Atti went down beneath the thing's weight. Perkar reached Mang, who was rearing again. He had to take his eyes off the battle for an instant, long enough to grab the hilt of his sword and pull out the long, sweet blade. From the corner of his eye, Perkar saw Ngangata calmly launching another shaft. Eruka stood as if frozen.

When Perkar turned again, the god was in midleap, poised above Apad. Apad shrieked and stabbed, shielding his face with his left arm. The blade seemed to go in, but it made little difference to the black apparition, which scrambled on past him toward the Kapaka. Miraculously, before it could reach him, it staggered, an arrow impaling the roof of its mouth and exiting between its eyes. The Kapaka stepped sharply back, then hammered his sword down, cut into the melonlike head.

Perkar was surprised to find himself in motion, screaming, sword raised. A long, dark, Human-fingered hand darted at him, and he brought his sword down from his shoulder, crossing his chest with the blade. The steel met the black limb near the wrist; it was like chopping into a stone, and the hilt rang in his hand, numbing it. The Kapaka stepped in again, and again, his heavy sword carving slivers of god-flesh from the monster's neck and head. Behind, Atti struggled to his feet, chest smeared with red blood. Perkar recovered and stroked his sword onto the squirming backbone. Then Atti was there, axe descending in a blow better designed to split wood than for combat. It hewed into a rear leg and severed it.

Perkar would never hear another sound like that; he would later call it a howl, knowing that such was no description for a noise that burrowed all the way into his bones. The god flipped back toward Atti, who had fallen along with his axe. Still screaming, it thrashed about on the ground.

"Up!" Ngangata yelled, still loosing arrows. "Up and ride! We cannot kill it, we can only flee."

The Kapaka seemed to know the truth of that; he was already gripping his saddle, preparing to mount. Atti struggled to his feet again, leaving a snail-trail of blood on the leaves behind him. Eruka stood, blank-eyed, until Perkar grabbed him by the arm and shoved him toward his horse. Then he was scrambling onto Mang. Apad was already mounted. Ngangata stayed a moment longer than they, placing three more arrows in the god—Perkar saw shafts protruding neatly from each eye. Then they were all fleeing on the thunder of horses' hooves. Perkar leaned onto Mang's neck, urging the animal faster.

"He was sleepy," Ngangata howled, from behind them. "Sleepy and slow. But he is awake now!"

"The other horses! Our packs!" Apad yelled back.

"No!" the Kapaka returned. "I forbid it. Leave them!"

Leaves and branches lashed at them, as if by their own will. The six riders fought their way over one ridge, then a second. When would they leave this god's territory and enter another? Apad's words were finally penetrating. Kutasapal was still back there, back with that black monster. Perkar very nearly wheeled Mang around then. He only truly owned three things: his sword, Mang, and Kutasapal. If he left Kutasapal, he owned only two. And he had discovered something in himself, something he never knew he had. When his sword struck the god for the first time, when it reached for him—all of his hesitation, his fear had dwindled, replaced by something… large. Something like anger or fury but colder, harsher. Brighter. His desire had been to hit the god again and again, until it died or his sword broke. Now… why hadn't he?

Because if he died now, he could never kill the god he really wanted to kill. But now he knew. A god could be killed, and he could kill it, with the right weapon.

So they rode on, and night fell, and still they rode, for the moon was full. Perkar's hand tingled, and it felt good. He had struck a Wild God and lived. What could he not do?

Not much later, Atti fell from his saddle. Perkar had tucked away the memory of the blood he had seen, preferring not to think about it. But now he was nearest the flame-haired man, and he dismounted. Atti was already trying to regain his feet.

"Just wait a moment," Perkar told him. "Let us look at that."

"Get him back on his horse," Eruka called. "That thing might still be coming."

The Kapaka and Ngangata trotted their horses so that they stood between Perkar and Atti and the way that they had come.

"See to him," the Kapaka said. After an instant, Apad also moved up to join them.

"Some god was protecting you," Perkar told Atti. "Telling you to put on your mail." The tough steel links had torn in the Wild God's claws; three rips ran for the length of a forearm from ster-num to crotch. The claws had dug deeper, and there was much bleeding, but so far as Perkar could tell, none of his organs were laid open to the air.

Atti swore copiously as Perkar got his mail and padded undershirt off of him.

"I have some long strips of colored linen here," the Kapaka said. "I brought it as a gift for the Forest Lord."

"Leave it then," Atti said.

"I have other gifts, still with me," the Kapaka replied. Perkar unpacked the linen and cut several lengths of it. Again to the sound of Atti's profanity, Perkar wrapped the cloth tightly about the hill man's chest and torso. Blood soaked it instantly, but even before the wrapping, Atti's blood had nearly ceased flowing of its own accord.

When Perkar was satisfied, he helped Atti back on his horse, handed him up a waterskin. Atti drank greedily.

"I think we need to go, if we can," the Kapaka said. Back behind them, the limbs of trees were beginning to wave to and fro. There was no wind.

"I can ride," Atti said. "I became dizzy for a moment only."

"This way," Ngangata said, spurring back to the front. He seemed to be examining something on the trees; Perkar thought, in the pale moonlight, that he saw marks there, tattoos on the trunks of the birches.

"There," Ngangata whispered. "See the firelight?" The moon had set, and that had slowed them down considerably. Now Perkar saw the faint, pale flower of illumination Ngangata referred to. Left to himself, Perkar would never have seen it; fatigue sat on his forehead, pushing on his eyelids, gently, insistently. The Wild God seemed far away, a dream.

"Who can it be?" Eruka wondered. "I hope they have some woti."

"They do not," Ngangata replied.

They wound through the last few trees. There, in the flicker of the light, Perkar saw his first true Alwa.

Ngangata had seemed so strange to him when they met, but suddenly Perkar thought him very Human, compared to the Alwat. Five of them clustered near the fire, standing as upright as any human. They were slender-hipped and broad-shouldered, thickly muscled. Their arms and legs seemed almost normal, but their bodies were not quite right, too wedge-shaped. A fine, silvery hair lay over their pale skins. It was in their heads that they were most strange, however. Their faces were flat and broad, bones as coarse as stone showing through them. They possessed neither foreheads nor chins; above their thick eyebrows their skulls were plainly flat; thick white hair was pulled back into buns. Massive but receding lower jaws blended into thick necks. It was in their eyes that he saw the most strangeness; like deep pools of water, they were murky, unreadable. They glimmered and quickened, darted or remained fixed, but in ways that seemed all wrong, that hinted at odd thoughts that Perkar could not understand.

Ngangata said something to them, the same clucking language he had spoken to the Wild God. One of the Alwat clucked back at him. The others stood stock-still. Their mouths were huge; Perkar was further reminded of the Wild God. What was it the Stream Goddess had once told him? That many gods took their forms from Human breath and blood? If so, perhaps in Alwat lands the gods took of Alwat blood for their forms.

"What are they saying?" Apad asked irritably.

"They say that the god will not follow us here. They say that this is the place of another god, Hanazalhakabizn. Hanazalhakabizn and V'fanaqrtinizd are old enemies."

"Banakartenis?" the Kapaka asked, trying to imitate the alien name. "Who?"

"V'fanaqrtinizd. The Wild God we just fought."

"But he will not follow us here. What about the local one—Hana-whatever ?"

Ngangata and the Alwat conversed a moment; two of the others added something; Perkar realized with a start that one of them was female; though shaped much like the men, she was a bit smaller and had very obvious breasts. He was surprised he had not noticed earlier.

Ngangata listened and then relayed what he had been told.

"Human people are allowed to pass through on their way to the Forest Lord, but not to build or cut. V'fanaqrtinizd was driven insane by Human Beings who injured him and killed his trees. They say the sound of the trees dying drove him insane."

Perkar was just realizing something else; that beyond the fire there was a building of some sort. A number of limber saplings had been planted and bent and tied together to form a sort of longhouse—a rude and tiny imitation of a damakuta. It was covered in bark and mats woven of some material. The Alwat were house-builders. Strange that he had never heard that.

The Alwat seemed to be through talking. They all squatted down, resting comfortably on their haunches. One of them—the female, actually—waddled a few feet from the fire and, as Perkar watched, commenced to shit.

"What disgusting creatures," Eruka commented.

Ngangata regarded them darkly. "Yes. They have agreed to let us stay near here. Tomorrow they will guide us on toward the Forest Lord."

"What did you have to promise them for that?" Apad asked caustically. "Our heads?"

Ngangata shook his head. "No. They think Human Beings amusing. They like to tell stories about them. If they travel with us, they will have many stories to tell."

"And you? Do you tell them stories about us?"

"I do."

"I thought as much."

Ngangata ignored that. "They say we may make camp on the ridge above this place," he said. "They said we may take a small branch of their fire if we wish."

"Thank them for me," the Kapaka said.

"They have no such word," Ngangata told him. "I can tell them 'It is enough' or 'You can share our camp, too.' "

"Tell them it is enough, then."

Perkar was glad that they were sleeping at some distance from the Alwat camp, though he had no illusions about being safe from them, should they decide to attack. It was just good to be out of their sight, out of that strange regard, the kind a child or a very old man might hold upon you. As he closed his eyes, he wondered what an Alwa might dream about, if dream they did. He might ask Ngangata, who must surely have dreams of both kinds, Human and Alwat.